Recent reviews by EchoFiveActual

It drags its feet way too long getting to the point. The first half up until the first credit roll. Is in my opinion weak. It's a standard RE/silent Hill like with not much more to it. Once it hits The more surreal second half It's a much more interesting experience but it takes too long to get there.

generally i would recommend it, but with the caveat that you need to really love the genre. as somebody with minimal experience with RE/silent hill it was really hard to get engaged initially and indeed i did bounce off my first play through. but there is something here buried deep within the story that is incredibly compelling. and i think people should experience it at least once.

Very short and frankly not very fun. just long enough to bring you outside the refund window. replayability is next to null and rapidly occilates between too hard and too easy with not much in the way of in-between or skill involved. get it on a heavy sale. in no world is this 20$ worth of content

SONY HAVE BAKCTRACKED


Below outdated as of may 5th
==================================================
Submit a refund request. It's not what I expected. Reason: the multiplayer doesn't work.

"The developers have announced that they will restrict my access to the game unless I sign up for and use a third-party service and account. This requirement was obfuscated at release and waived for three months, before it was announced as a REQUIREMENT to continue to play the game at all."

Spongebob squarepants battle for bikini bottom rehydrated. might just be my ideal game, and i do not say that lightly. I will describe my tastes and how BFBB:R fits them shortly. But first the preamble.

As a remake of a classic early 2000's era 3D collect-a-thon platformer widely considered the best spongebob game BFBB:R has some rather large (and squeaky)shoes to fill.

First off graphically this game looks amazing. The original did not look bad by any means, but with the remake the game has recieved a complete face lift. High defenition models, an increase in saturation and a huge increase in draw distance leaves BFBB:R an improvement across the board. However there some minor graphical issues that while small should not be ignored, such as spongebob losing his eyelashes periodically in cutscenes.

Sound wise BFBB:R far as i can tell uses all of the original audio. For better or worse, be that ost. Character voices. Or enemy sounds. Which is great! But it does mean that voices they could not get for the original, such as the case for Mr Crabs. Will not have their official voice from the show here either. This will have varying degrees of importance to people but keep it in mind.

Now for my tastes and how they apply to the game.

Something i can tackle at my own pace. This is not a long game at all. Stages will take roughly 45 minutes to an hour to complete depending on your familiarity and completionism. The world is broken up into zones further broken up into 4 stages, with 8 golden spatulas(the main metric of progression) each. As well as a handful of various collectables. You can tackle these in roughly any order you want. Leaving and returning freely. Which you'll need to do as you unlock new abilities. Each zone branches off of a hub world taking the form of lower conch street. Containing small buildings such as spongebobs home. Each level has its own theme challenges and obsticals that prevent the gameplay from going stale. Be it the slides and time trials of sand mountain. The rooftop swinging of downtown bikini bottom. Or the goo lakes of goo lagoon.

For the second criteria: progression.

This is a simple one. By defeating bosses and unlocking additional areas of the hub world spongebob unlocks new abilities to aid in future and past levels. On top of this patric and sandy have their own abilities with levels requiring frequent switching, the need of which is handily choreographed by bus stops in the level and environmental items

Spongebob is easily the most versitile. Equiped with a standard attack. An upwards jumping attack. A ground pound. A ranged bowling attack. And a remote controled cruise missile all under a cute bubble theme.

Sandy is mobile equiped with her standard attack. The ability to swing and glide with her laso and able to instantly destroy larger robots and tiki's from a distance.

Patric is strong. He gets a standard attack and a ground pound. But is also able to pick up tikis. fruits found in the environment. and robots stunned by his ground pound for use in combat and puzzle solving.

All of this is taught gradually to the player with increased complexity further into the game allowing a simple but satisfying sense of progression.

Finally the third: defined goals.

This is a collect-a-thon. You have a defined checklist to fill out. Each level has a menu detailing its objectives and collectibles. What you have found and what you need to find. You know what completion entails and how close you are to achieving it. Most importantly this is a game that respects your time. Everything is achievable in a single run, and it wont be overly difficult to do so.

BFBB:R is a short curated experience that actively takes steps to avoid overstaying its welcome. And to a degree understays its welcome. Had there been a couple more zones i dont think i would have complained. An easy 95/100 that i'd reccomend for fans of the show of all ages.

Okay finally got around to playing about an hour of endless dark. And completed the first act of the story.

Its a very lonely and monotonous game. And that's by design. And very much a good thing. It would defeat the point if it felt alive. Just you. A failing ship. And the endless centuries.

The toll it takes on your character is obvious, with them slowly slipping into psychosis from stress and fatigue. As failing systems snowball making it harder and harder to complete your work. Insanity sets in. And eventually you succumb. Critical errors result in an unrecoverable shutdown. The ship makes a replacement you. And they step out of the charge module to find the old you collapsed in the corner. Covered in a fine layer of dust. And the next round begins.
There's an endless rougelite mode i haven't tried yet. With three ongoing crisis's. Only one of which is an actual threat. The trick is identifying which is which before its too late.

If i had a nickle for every time ive tear gassed a room only to get gunned down by a random unprotected mook unaffected by the gas standing in the niddle of the cloud who then laser pinpoint puts a bullet between my eyes instantly. I could buy someone the supporter edition

with the release of 1.0 i think its time i put some thoughts down. spoilers below obviously. please forgive the ranty format, because thats what this is. stolen directly from my discord feedback.

I personally dont like the story. While i do respect the devs for sticking to their vision and making the game they wanted to make technical limitations aside.

I think myself and others expected a wildly different game. I'm still happy with my purchase and got way more than what i paid in value from it. though I think i could have been happier had it gone another way. The game was more or less feature complete months ago. Aside from the third act and ship saving i had experienced everything there was to experience several times over at various stages of development. And i'm not sure 1.0 added enough to justify the price hike, nor do i see myself coming back to it now that story completion effectively wipes out whatever long term goals there where.
A big factor in my reluctance to replay is being forced into re-experiencing a story i don't care much about, again. The majority of which for the 3rd time. It simply takes any replayability it might have had and drags it out with slow somewhat frequent distractions, with no option to skip them on subsequent play throughs
Unless something big is announced, i think i'm going to completely shelve HS:SB for the forseeable future. It was fun, but with nothing to look forward to. And no interest in replaying what is on offer. Nothing is keeping me here.

it doesnt help that the story has no stakes what so ever for the player. your ship you never interact with is taken away and.... thats it. and any teeth it could have had are pulled out in the name of not being too dark
nobody dies
nobody gets hurt long term
the good guys win and everybody lives happily ever after
your just a wildly over qualified observer trapped in a bubble while talking heads yap at you
its boring
and a lot of the time, it keeps you from getting to the next shift. and your stuck having to sit while the talking heads yap nonsense at you

while everybody but kaito and weaver talk themselves into deeper and deeper holes antagonizing a guy they themselves said to keep your head down around
just tbh the story doesnt resonate with me, i dont like the majority of the characters. and the constant interruptions stop me from zoning out to music or podcasts like i'd like to while playing
and i cant even skip them for the trouble
even the satisfaction of chipping my debt away is stolen from me at the last minute.
as the story expanded it became less and less satisfying to play.

get it 50% off or dont bother.

I really don't like this game, so i'm not going to to go to the effort of writing a proper review. instead i'm going to post excerpts from a conversation detailing some of my complaints.

One part that stands out is when i jumped over to a small floating island with supplies to have a houndeye hidden just behind a rock
Its just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ design
Or the part where it drops like 15 headcrabs on your head in a confined space
The story telling aspect of half-life is sublime, but i cannot look past that kind of level design

"just save scum its a feature"

I just hate games that encourage exploration via supply caches, and then punish exploration via trapped supplies and cheap monster closets
Its antiquated and was left behind for the most part for a reason
I shouldn't have to save scum though. My skill should be enough to carry me through. If i need precognition its a bad design choice

"i don't mind the gotcha moments tbh very far in-between"

They abuse it a-lot toward the end I wish i did like it, cause its clearly a labour of love that had a lot of care and passion put into it. But i cant help but feel they learned all the wrong lessons and squandered a chance to improve the game in its most important aspect when improving it for a modern audience. Gameplay and level design.

I had gone into inscryption really hopeful. the look and feel of act one with its rouge lite elements and 3D game board looked really interesting. and for the most part it was. But that's where the appeal ends. Act one has a lot of potential. But Its not super well ballenced. Its very easy to game, and the card combinations can very quickly snowball. Its clear the game isn't designed to stay that way forever.

Around the 4 hour mark give or take the game transitions into a Top down nes style game. which isn't a bad thing on its own. but it lacks a lot of that visual appeal, and introduces a handful of brand new mechanics without any real introduction. while straight removing most if not all of the previous mechanics you will be used to at the this point. no more death cards, no more branching paths, no more sacrifices to boost existing cards, no more totems, no more drawing squirels to fund your real cards. even the previous boss fights are now single round affairs.

Don't fall into the same trap i did. if you aren't 1000% sure you'll enjoy the game turning itself on its head into arguably a completely different game well past the refund window. this game isn't for you.

The atmosphere of this little indie is top notch!

Erie silence broken only by the low the drone of machinery, When dealing with the unknown in the middle of absolute isolation. And the one life style. Paranoia becomes rampant.

At one point i heard this skittering garbling noise that seemed to follow me, as well as banging on my airlock. so the brave boy i was, climbed into my EVA suit and took a waltz outside to take a look. Nothing was there. puzzeled i returned to my helm to continue my remote exploration, but as strange events that i will not spoil continued. i took another look.

The source of my troubles was something i willingly brought on board...